A plasma display panel (PDP) is well-known as an AC-driven gas discharge display device, which includes a discharge gas sealed between a pair of glass substrates, and uses a pulsating discharge between dielectric-layer coated electrodes to excite three-primary color phosphors, to thereby provide full-color display. With this panel structure, however, the size of a display screen is restricted by the size of the glass substrates used.
A plasma tube array type AC gas discharge display device has been proposed, which includes an array of a required number of thin discharge tubes having a diameter of 1 mm or less. The screen can have a size determined freely by adjusting the number of the thin discharge tubes used, and, in addition, can have flexibility as a Venetian blind. Accordingly, the display device of this type is expected to be useable to realize what is called a wall display.
An example of prior AC gas discharge display devices of such plasma tube array type is described in JP 2003-338245 A. This gas discharge display device includes a large number of thin discharge tubes arranged side by side and sandwiched between a pair of electrode supporting substrates. The electrode supporting substrate on a display screen side is provided with multifunctional filter means, which improve definition of the display tube.